Mapping Out Marketing

ENTRY #9     How can you get to know the true identity of your target market?

Craig J. Thompson

Churchill Professor of Marketing, Wisconsin School of Business, School of Journalism & Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Know thy consumer! It would be hard to find a more accepted truism in marketing. A seemingly infinite, decades-spanning array of books, articles, news reports, class room lectures, and business strategy meetings have focused on the task of understanding “consumers,” and satisfying their fickle wants and needs. But, what if this marketing pursuit of the elusive “consumer” manifests a fundamental misconception? ...